


Teen!Lian Harper

by RachelGoth



Category: DCU
Genre: Jason is being a little petty, Lian may or may not have said "you're not my dad", M/M, Other, Roy and Jay had no idea what they were getting into, Roy is being a helicopter parent, they went from daddies to dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28326060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RachelGoth/pseuds/RachelGoth
Summary: Lian Harper is now 16 years old. It is not hard to believe that the girl is not the most tamed teenager, mostly not when we know she was brought up by Roy Harper and Jason Todd. These two knew that a teenaged Lian would be trouble, but they had no idea how much she would...
Relationships: Lian Harper & Jason Todd, Lian Harper & Roy Harper, Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	Teen!Lian Harper

**Author's Note:**

> The characters do not belong to me, but to DC, I am merely using them because they make me burst with creativity.

*Knock knock knock*

“Who the fuck is knocking at 7 am?” Jason groaned, half asleep, the shape of his pillow stamped on his cheek. Roy stirred awake, half-heartedly separating from Jason, running a hand through his ginger bedhead. 

“I have absolutely no idea, Jaybird” Roy answered with a slight yawn. The boy had not gone to bed early, for many reasons. One, patrol, and second, their mutual horniness. 

“I’m not getting up, whoever’s at the door so goddam early can fuck theirselves” Jason added, glancing at Roy for a second as the ginger got up and pulled on some sweats and a white shirt that laid on the ground. He grumbled a bit under his breath but still made his way outside the room and to the door with a stretch and another yawn.

He opened the door and was greeted with “Dinah dropped me off and said I’m supposed to stay with you and Jay for the rest of the month”

Roy blinked a bit, surprised to say the least. He had slept maybe 4 hours, and didn’t expect Lian for at least a week now. Of course, he was glad to have her over, as always, and he knew Jay was too, but he just wasn’t expecting it now. They had patrol and work scheduled pretty much everyday this week. Of course, Lian was older now, and she didn’t need a sitter, but Roy still felt bad for leaving her alone for so long and having to see him and Jason come back home in not always the best shape. 

“Dinah said what now?” He asked, clearly the words taking some time to process in his still asleep brain. Lian rolled her eyes as she stepped inside, past her dad, who closed the door. 

“She said she had important things to do and that I didn’t need to be involved in it” Lian replied as she moved to crash on the couch, putting her bag down with a sigh, crossing her arms and looking at her father. “Is Jay here?” she added after a couple seconds. 

“He is. He’s sleeping. We had patrol.” Roy answered, glancing over at his daughter. God, he had not seen the time fly. It seemed like only a year ago she was still eight years old, with her sparkly Sketchers, stealing Jason’s helmet to cover it in unicorn stickers. Now she was a teenager, with the eyerolls, the parental opposition and the boyfriends. Ugh, the boyfriends. She really wasn’t a kid anymore. 

“You need anythin’? If not, I’ll go back to sleep. There’s eggs in the fridge and cereals in the pantry” he said and Lian answered with an intelligible mumble. Roy rose a brow, sighed quietly and gave a small nod before he went back to crash in his bed, beside Jason, who opened one sleepy eye to look at his boyfriend. 

“So, who was it?” Jason grumbled quietly as he stretched and put both of his hands behind his head, closing back his eyes. 

“Lian. Seems like Dinah had some important business and couldn’t keep her for the rest of the week like we agreed” Roy answered with a soft sigh. “Is it just me or has Lian grown overnight?” he said, almost with nostalgia in his voice. 

“Don’t say that, it just makes us older, especially you” Jason answered, the slightest grin spreading across his face. They both stayed silent for a moment, and Roy shifted to about the same position that Jason was in, hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling above him. 

“She’s 16 and already a handful. I mean, everyone could have guessed she would have been, they just needed to look at her father, and her mother” Jason added, the same grin on his lips. 

“Yeah, of course Jaybird, like you didn’t have any impact on her.” Roy almost tsked in answer. 

“Oh, please. I'm an angel. Around Lian, at least” Jason replied

“Mhm, yeah, sure” was the last thing Roy said before the two of them fell asleep for a little. They were woken up by the sound of music playing, well, blasting was the right word in the circumstances. 

Jason, being a light sleeper, was the first one to wake up, with yet another groan. He almost only communicated in groans and grumbles when he woke up. Jason sat up, rubbed his temples, took a deep breath and got up. He loved Lian, but she truly was a handful. She had always been a handful, and Roy could say the same thing, but her teen years were… how could he nicely put it. Troublesome. Yes, that was the right word. Really, fucking, troublesome. 

The noise of the loud rock music only increased as a still tired Jason made his way to Lian’s door. The door was covered in a couple passive aggressive signs and drawings : a big one said ‘no adults allowed’, another one was a drawing of what seemed like Jason’s red hood and Roy’s red hair with a cap, both their faces in a red crossed circle. There was also one with written on it ‘enter at your own risk’, that had been added by Jason maybe a year ago as a joke, but Lian had decided to keep it, and it had never fitted better. 

Jason knocked on the door, but he doubted Lian had even heard the soft knock over the blasting music. Jason knocked again, a bit louder, as the song switched to some even louder AC/DC. He took a deep breath and opened the door, praying he would not see something he wasn’t supposed to see. Lian was just laying in her bed, looking at her cellphone, her foot moving to the rhythm of the deafening music in the background. Jason loved rock, he loved AC/DC, but maybe not when it was so loud it resonated in his skull, and mostly not when it awoke him. 

Lian’s room was one of a typical teenager. The once pink and purple walls had taken in a more neutral, white-ish, beige-ish color. Not that the color really mattered, given the number of posters, pictures and drawings covering every four walls. The posters were varied ; they went from slogans to heroes posters, passing by pictures of Lian with friends and family to band posters. Lian also drew from time to time, and various drawings were taped to the walls. The subjects were very disparate, but it represented well the teen’s personality. Disparate and all over the place. 

Lian finally seemed to notice Jason and she looked at him with almost a frown on her features. She put down her phone and answered with a single syllable. “What”. Jason answered by raising an eyebrow. That girl had probably learned a bit too much from him. Sometimes she repeated his mannerisms in a way that was almost scary. She did the same with Roy’s, but it was a bit more subtle. 

“Turn the music down a bit. A lot, actually” the man replied as he leaned in the doorframe, not wanting to step in and invade Lian’s privacy. She had been very clear to Roy and Jason about respecting her privacy and not intruding in her life too much. And one feet into her room resulted in a teenage tantrum and an even more teenage lecture about privacy, for the millionth time. Jason had found a simple solution : not stepping in the room. 

Lian seemed to almost be waiting for him to walk in but seeing he didn’t, she grumbled and grabbed her phone again. “I think it’s fine like that. And I thought you liked rock music” she replied, not even glancing up from her screen now that she was sure Jason would not walk inside. 

Jason’s brows furrowed and he rubbed his temples a bit. He rarely lost his cool with Lian, and he wanted to keep it like that. “I do love rock. But me and your dad are trying to sleep and -”. He was cut mid-sentence

“It’s one in the afternoon. Don’t you think it’d be time you’d wake up and do stuff? Be productive?” she replied, sulking her head in the pillow under her. Jason gritted his teeth and rubbed his temples harder. “Watch your tone, Harper” he replied, trying to keep his tone low but his words were definitely snapped. Lian frowned, turned down the volume, and tsked under her breath. 

“There. Is that good enough for you, Todd?” she snapped back. Jason sighed a bit, and nodded once, stiffly. “Yes. Thank you” he said before he closed the door and promptly left to go find his spot in bed again, though he was unsure he could fall back asleep. Roy didn’t seem to have been woken up by the noise, so at least that was good. 

Jason was unable to fall back asleep, even when he tried to focus on Roy’s slow and constant breathing to relax himself. He felt like he shouldn’t have snapped at Lian like that. It was already hard enough with her sometimes, so bickering truly was not necessary. Plus, Jason was trying to be as good a role model to the girl as he could, mostly after all he had gone through in life. But Jason was Jason, and he was not the most patient man on this Earth. 

Lian laid in her bed, the frown still plastered on her expression. She herself had no idea why she had said those things to Jason. She perfectly knew he and her dad had been on patrol and that it was not always easy. But sometimes she just had to. And then they’d quarrel for a bit and give each other the silent treatment for the rest of the day. She did the same thing to her father, though it could usually get more heated with him than with Jason. And Roy also didn’t hesitate to take away her phone whenever she acted up too much. 

Sometimes, Lian just felt left out. She had pretty much always felt left out. Her father, ever since she was young, had never really wanted to involve her in his business. Jason pretty much followed in Roy’s steps on that, and Dinah tried to keep Lian away from her work and everything related to it. Lian wanted to help, she wanted to be there, she wanted to know. She was not a child anymore, and yet she felt like she was being treated like one and it was very frustrating. She could only stand in the back and watch the people she liked go and sacrifice themselves everyday. All she could do was train the skills she had already been taught, but she couldn’t use them, which was also extremely frustrating. 

She was about to raise the volume of an especially good song, but she realized she’d wake someone again and would get scolded for it. She sighed and got up, grabbing a black hoodie with a skull printed on the back of it and slipping it over her t-shirt. She grabbed her backpack and filled it with a couple belongings : wallet, phone charger, headphones, a book, a drawing pad and some pencils, an extra hoodie, a pair of jeans and some miscellaneous stuff that could always be   
useful. It was almost muscle memory at this point. She was getting used to going out for at least a night, even if it made everyone go crazy. She must’ve ran away at least 100 times by now, and even though it was never for more than a day or two, people still panicked just as much as the first time. 

Lian exited her room, grabbed a couple bucks out of her dad’s wallet that was on the counter, grabbed a packet of chips and left once the money was tucked in the backpocket of her jeans. She glanced down the corridor of the appartment to make sure neither Jason nor Roy were awake before she quietly opened the door and walked out, locking behind her. She knew exactly where she was going, and it certainly would not be the first time she’d sneak out to go there.

The place was a couple blocks away from the apartment, in the less pretty side of the city. It was a small boxing gym. Of course, there was a gym at home, with a punching bag and all the machines she’d ever need, but whenever she’d start punching away her frustration, her father would walk in, cross his arms and ask “What’s wrong, Pumpkin?”. Lian would answer with either a groan, “Don’t call me that, I’m not a child anymore” or she’d just stop and go lock herself away in her room for a couple hours. 

Plus, at that gym, she could box real people, and that was awfully liberating. Of course, contrarily to a punching bag, people fought back, but she didn’t mind. Of course, this got Jason and Roy worried, but Lian didn’t really mind. A blackeye or a couple bruises was nothing compared to what these two came back with sometimes. 

It took Lian maybe fifteen minutes to arrive, and the owner greeted her with a smile. She slipped him a couple bucks for the day and got ready. She took off her hoodie, tied up her messy black hair and wrapped her hands in bandages. She found an empty spot and just started throwing punches at the bag. Right, left, right, left, kick and repeat. She did that for a bit, well, she assumed it wasn’t so long, and stopped when the sweat started dripping off of her nose. She grabbed a small towel from her bag and wiped her face, feeling a bit more liberated already.

In the middle of the gym stood a boxing ring. In said ring stood two tall and bulky men that were fighting. Lian made her way there and watched, crossing her arms, her head slightly tilted to the side as she watched the blond, slightly taller one throw an uppercut at his adversary, who stumbled back into the strings that surrounded the ring. The latter rose his hand in defeat and the winner smirked for a couple seconds before he congratulated his opponent. The loser stepped off the ring and Lian tightened her ponytail before she grabbed a pair of gloves and climbed in the ring. The blond man, that was probably Jason’s age, gave the teenage girl a side glance. 

“I’m not sure you’re really a match for me, princess. Wouldn’t want to snap you in half” the man laughed a bit, crossing his arms. 

It was true Lian didn’t seem like your typical boxer. She wasn’t exactly small, but she still wasn’t as tall as her father or Jason. She was slim, but it was pretty much just muscle at that point. She trained a good amount, and she certainly was a bit more agile than most people in this gym. 

“Oh, you’d be surprised, old man” she replied, a shit eating grin spread on her lips. The man raised a brow and nodded curtly. 

“Fine. But don’t go crying to your daddy if you get hurt” he said as he popped his neck and fingers. Lian nodded and did the same, taking a step forward. 

“Bring it on” she said, squinting her green eyes a little bit. She followed his moves with her eyes, and easily saw the uppercut coming towards her. She ducked quickly, and used her right fist to punch the man in the stomach. He grunted and took a step back, clearly surprised. He had clearly underestimated her, and Lian would certainly use that to her advantage. She kicked him in the calf to make him lose balance, and it was followed by a well placed uppercut. The man stumbled back and chuckled a bit as he wiped some blood that stopped from his mouth. He had bitten his tongue after that very surprising uppercut. 

“Well, I underestimated you, kiddo” he said as he rubbed the back of his head. Lian grinned proudly and shook the guy’s hand before she hopped off the ring. 

The rest of the night was uneventful. She started getting panicked messages at maybe midnight. It started with the classic “Where are you?” followed by “When are you coming back” until the messages turned into “Lian Harper, answer your phone or you’ll be grounded”. Texts became calls, and Lian put her phone on silent with a sigh as she sat on a rooftop, a habit she had gotten from hanging with bats. She was munching on a burger, watching the nightlife in the streets under her. She’d probably go back to the gym tomorrow then head back home once she had fought her irritation away. 

She found a cheap motel room for the night and paid with the remaining money she had. She kept her phone shut down until she came back around five in the evening the next day. She tried to sneak in, maybe Jason and Roy were out on patrol or something, but she did not have that luck. At the moment she opened the door, two heads turned to look at her, and not one of the two seemed particularly happy. She chewed on her inner cheek and put down her bag. Roy was the first one on his feet, and he made his way to his daughter, arms crossed on his chest. Lian had braced herself for a lecture and an interrogation, but it was still not fun. 

“Lian Harper! Where were you? What were you doing? You could have at least left me or Jaybird a note! Do you know just how worried we were? You didn’t even answer your phone! There’s a reason I pay your phone bill Lian, and it’s not so you can ignore me like that when I call you about a million times! ” Roy rambled, his voice almost shaky. Lian almost felt bad. Almost. But sneaking out was honestly what kept her sane, so she answered with an eye roll and a deep, teenager-style sigh. 

Jason was much less of a ball of nerves, but sometimes that was almost scarier. He stood behind Roy, one hand on the ginger’s shoulder, trying to calm him down a little bit. 

“Your dad’s right, Lian. You really shouldn’t sneak out like that -” he said and Lian snapped. Again.

“You’re not my dad!” she said, but immediately regretted it. Jason’s mouth shut quickly enough, and Lian could see his features had stiffened a little bit. He gave Roy’s shoulder a squeeze before he took a step back. He said nothing and turned around, grabbing his coat and stepping out towards the door. “Jay -” Lian tried to apologize, but the door slammed shut before she could say anything. She sighed a bit, and Roy crossed his arms. 

“I don’t think that was really necessary, Lian” he said. Father and daughter stared at each other for a couple seconds before Lian handed her phone to Roy, mumbled an apology under her breath and made her way to her room. She laid on her bed and stared at the ceiling in silence. She felt a couple tears on her cheeks but wiped them away quickly before she got up to grab a book. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. A Christmas gift she had gotten from Jason for her 16th birthday. Inside was written “I am proud of the woman you have become, <3, Papa Jay”. Lian sniffled a bit, and even though she had already finished it some time ago, she started to read it. 

She read it for a good bit, until she heard knocks on her door. She closed the book and went to open the door. Roy was standing there with a sandwich, which probably meant Jason wasn’t back. Lian took it carefully, her gaze low.

“Is Jay back?” she asked quietly. Roy shook his head softly and placed one hand under Lian’s chin, raising her head so he could look at her, a small, reassuring smile on his lips. 

“He’s not. He’ll be back soon though. Don’t worry about this too much Pumpkin, aight’? Jaybird’s a little bit petty” he said softly and pecked his daughter’s forehead softly. 

There was a small silence between them. “Say, can I have my phone back?” Lian tried and Roy rose a brow. 

“Nice try, but no,” he said before he left. Lian closed the door and sat down at her desk with a small sigh. She took a bite or two out of her sandwich, but she wasn’t really hungry. She felt like she had a weight in her stomach. She sighed and pulled out the book again, reading until she fell asleep on her desk, face inside of her book, literally. 

She was woken up the next day by voices trying to keep it hush but painfully unable to. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and got up slowly, stretching. Her back hurt a bit from the way she had slept. She quietly opened her door, and overheard snippets of a conversation. 

“... just a couple cuts, I’ve been worse, Roy”

“You can’t just go and get beat up like that every time someone says something you dislike”

“I do whatever the fuck I want, Roy” 

“She didn’t mean it, Jaybird. She’s a teen - “

“Oh, so, since she’s a teen, I’m not allowed to be hurt?”

Lian felt the weight in her stomach come back and she gulped. She slowly walked out of her room, almost feeling tears in her eyes. Roy saw her first, and he opened his mouth to say something but he stopped when Lian hugged Jason, tightly. Jason and Roy were both very surprised, and Jason took a little seconds to process what was happening. He gently wrapped his arms around the girl, silent. 

“I’m sorry Jay. I didn’t mean it” Lian said quietly, her face in Jason’s jacket. It smelled of cigarettes and cologne. Jason stayed silent for a little bit, internally debating on if he should hold his grudge or not. He didn’t want to see Lian sad, afterall. 

“It’s fine, Lian” Jason replied after a bit. 

“You forgive me?” she asked quietly and sniffled

“Only if you do the dishes for the week” Jason said, trying to keep a poker face. Lian glanced up at him and nodded. 

“Okay” she said quietly. Roy chuckled in the background and winked at Jason.

“Can I join that hug?” he asked, and Lian nodded, opening her arms a bit wider. Roy happily slipped in the group hug, pecking Lian, then Jason’s temple lovingly.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request by one of my friends, and I had a lot of fun writing it! It was initially a x-mas present, but with her consent, I am posting it here because I did put a lot of heart (and time, lol) in it.


End file.
